 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and this is the first of six lectures on Lucretius, this one about the overall structure and logic of his poem and the basic propositions of atomism, as he discusses in De Rerum Natura, book 1. And I'm using the translation of Cyril Bailey, which is widely available in the public domain, for example, through the Internet Archive. Now, start out by talking about the author himself, Lucretius and the address C of his poem and the nature of the poem. So actually start with the address C because he is better known than the author. Memius or Gaius Memius was the son-in-law of Sulla, a Roman politician and general. Memius was a cultured man and a patron of poets including Cthulis. Lucretius's frequent warnings throughout the poem about intellectual laziness, ambition, luxury, and greed seemed to imply that his well-known address C was badly in need of the instruction and Epicurean therapy that Lucretius offers in the poem. Now, Lucretius himself, we think was born around 94 BC and died around 55 BC. De Rerum Natura is his only known work. It's unclear if this work was completed. For example, there are what we call doublets, that is, repetitions of passages that we assume if it had been in a more finished state would have been removed. There's also debate about the end of the work, whether it has a proper conclusion. It ends with this dire and hideous description of people dying of the plague in Athens. Shouldn't the poem have ended on a more positive note? If so, perhaps it's lacking a conclusion and that might suggest that it was incomplete. The poem itself contains scant indications about Lucretius's character himself, although it's clear that he had an aristocratic status and a very high level of education that he probably had very good Greek. At any rate, he had a good comprehension of history of philosophy. It's clear that he is an adherent to Epicureanism and that he has a hatred of traditional religion, and so he's a bit of an iconoclast. Now, there are legends about Lucretius reported to us in a hostile source, the Church Father Jerome, that Lucretius consumed a love potion that he went mad, that he committed suicide. That's why the poem seems incomplete and even that his poem was later edited by Cicero. There's no evidence for any of that and none of it should be believed and none of it should be brought into the interpretation of his poem. Now, the poem itself is an epic didactic poem in hexameters. The translation we're using by Bailey is in prose, but there are translations in meter that are available and we must ever keep in mind that it is a poem and that Lucretius is very concerned with the aesthetics of the poem. In fact, we could have an entire account of the poem that focused on the aesthetic and literary merits of it, its precedents in other epic poetry like that of Homer or Empedocles, or its comparison with other Latin poetry like of Ovid, or its influence on later poetry down even into the modern period, and its reception and so forth. Even on the philosophical side, there could be a lot said about Lucretius's predecessors, not just Epicurus, but also the various presecratic figures that he refers to, Democritus and so forth, or we could compare Lucretius with other philosophers writing around the time, including the contemporary Epicurian philosopher Philodemus, or again, we could talk about the philosophical reception of the poem down to the modern age. But in this lecture, I'm not going to talk about any of the background influences poetic literary aspect or the reception of the poem, but instead concentrate on the most, as it were, prosaic aspects of the poem, its overall structure and architecture, and the logic of the philosophical arguments about nature that it contains. So first of all, about the overall structure of the poem. It consists of six books. And I give you a basic summary of what each book is about. First, the first book introduces us to the idea of atoms and void, and basic elements of things. The second book talks about how these atoms and void are combined into complexes and compounds that are visible to us. The third book discusses living things, animate things and souls and how living things and souls can be produced out of complexes and compounds of these simpler inanimate bodies, the atoms and void. Then the fourth book deals with various capabilities or abilities of living things, including sensation, desire and thought. Book five moves on to discuss astronomical topics like the nature of the moon, sun and stars, and also communities of humans and the origin and development of human civilization. And finally, the sixth book is concerned with the whole world with meteorological events like rain, clouds, wind, lightning, earthquakes and so forth, and what goes on in the sky. Now, we can divide the poem up into various ways. One very instructive way is to think of the books in pairs and to talk about three levels on which the poem operates. The first level taking books one and two would be the microscopic level of physics, where he's explaining the basic fundamental notions of physics, the minute and invisible atoms and void. In books three and four, we get on a higher level a discussion of living things, including the human soul, our senses and mind, that is talking about psychology. In books five and six, we go to a larger macroscopic level to talk about natural history in general, including anthropology and cosmology. So the poem progresses from the smallest, most minute level to the largest and universal level and passes through all of the stages in between. Thinking of it like that, operating on different levels, we can actually think of two halves of the poem, the first three books dealing with microscopic principles of nature as these can be inferred from macroscopic and visible phenomena. And so this part of the poem dealing with the physical assumptions of atomism and Epicureanism, while the latter three books, four, five and six, deal with macroscopic phenomena that are explained by the microscopic principles and brings out the ethical implications of the physical assumptions. Now, those are all very familiar ways of dividing the book, but there are other structures that we can detect in the architecture. For example, many people have pointed out the balance between the poem's opening, which talks about birth generation coming into being and the dismal closing of the poem dealing with disease, death and destruction due to the plague. And so we open with birth and end with death as it were. And I think we can actually see a structure that covers the whole development of a sort of lifecycle of an organism, especially a human being. So the first book dealing with themes about birth generation creation, going through the topics of growth and nurturing, adolescence, adulthood, decline, and finally death. So the poem itself has an organic, natural structure that mirrors a living thing. Now, a bit more about the structure of the six books. Each book contains about 1000 lines or a little more, and usually includes the following elements, a poem or introduction, randomly scattered exhortations or protreptic passages. The bulk of each book is consumed with arguments about atomism and Epicureanism. And then each book has a finale. And these are balanced in pairs of books, as I'll explain. Now, the poems are introductions. For example, in the first book, there is the invocation and praise of Venus, the goddess of birth and creation. In the second book, a praise of philosophy in general. In book three, a praise of Epicurus specifically. In book four, a description of Lucretius's mission. In book five, we get more praise of Epicurus. And then this reaches a kind of crescendo in the poem or introduction to book six, where there is praise of Epicurus and Epicurean gods and a virtual deification of Epicurus himself. The exhortations appear scattered throughout the work, but they make it clear that the work has an overall therapeutic purpose that is meant to resolve ills of the mind or psyche. And there are repeated exhortations for Memius and generically the reader to for us all to apply our mind to these teachings. Now, the arguments as I've just gone over deal with various levels of reality. The first book, basic propositions of atomism. The second book, motion and variety of the atoms and the infinity of worlds. Book three, life, soul and mortality. Book four, sensation, thought and the passions. Book five, astronomy, human evolution and civilization. And book six, meteorology and epidemiology. Now, each book also includes a finale. The finales are not cleanly set apart from the arguments themselves, but sort of blend into them. But we can tell that they are meant each to work up to a finale, not just because they clearly rhetorically do, but also because we can pair thematic topics that are in the finales. So in the first book, we end up discussing the mind blowing notion of the infinity of void space and the infinity of atoms that are constantly moving through it. And then in book two, we also get the mind blowing finale discussing the infinite plurality of worlds and the existence of other worlds beyond our solar system, including other inhabited worlds and extraterrestrial intelligences and extraterrestrial beings. In book three, we have an attack of on the fear of death at the very end and in book four, an attack on the passion of love. And these central books give as it were the core ethical message of the overall poem. The poem is meant to serve this therapeutic purpose of relieving the fear of death and relieving you from the pains of desire. And so those two themes are paired at the end of the central books. And for the last two books, at the end of book five, we have a very famous description of the achievements and ascendance and development of human civilization. And this is balanced by the end of book six, where we have a description of the horrific plague and disease and Athens, which is ruining civilization and shows how everything, even the greatest civilization, goes into decline and death, exactly as our world will do. So that's what I'll say about the general structure of the book. For the rest of this talk, I will concentrate on book one, beginning with giving an outline of it. So it consists of the poem, the opening invocation to Venus and appeal to Memius, Epicurus pitted against traditional religion, and the denouncement of the fear of death and disease, the promise that the author will deliver a cure for this fear. Then we have various exhortations scattered throughout book one. But most of book one, a thousand lines of it or so are devoted to arguments, which lay out basic propositions of atomism, issue a refutation of some rival theories, offer a proof that the universe is infinite, including an infinite void or empty space and an infinite number of bodies within it, that is the atoms or compounds. And finally, there is the finale, which deals with this infinite number of them. But we also, at the very end, get a reminder of the overall therapeutic purpose of the work and of another exhortation. So let's begin by talking about the famous introduction or poem, the invocation to Venus. Venus is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Aphrodite. This is the goddess of sex and love and generation, the symbolic mother of all creation and the generative force of nature. And Lucretius describes her as operating in every ecological niche. So there are references to beings in the ocean, fishes, beings in the sky, birds, creatures on land, like snakes and humans, and even the ecology of outer space or the heavens. And Venus represents hot desire, as he repeatedly says, that is the driver urge the desire to reproduce, to renew the stock of each kind of thing. And this relates to the ethical theme about limitation of desires that comes in later. Now, Lucretius implores Venus to subdue Mars, which is the Roman name for the Greek god Aries and the god of war. So Lucretius prays for peace. The context is he's writing in a time of war and chaos, so he needs peace, so that he can not only compose these verses, but also convey them to Memius, who can listen to them with a calm and open mind, and so start living as an Epicurean with a constant undistressed mind. Now, there are actually some very substantive philosophical things that are accomplished in the prompt. And the first of them is the beginning of an attack on religion. And this is stated in some very strong terms, I'll quote from around lines 62 to 79, when the life of man lay foul to see and groveling upon the earth crushed by the weight of religion, a man of Greece who dared first to raise his mortal eyes to meet her appears. He brings us tidings, what we can what can come to be and what cannot yay and in what way each thing has its power limited and its deep set boundary stone. And so religion in revenge is cast beneath men's feet and trampled and victory raises us to heaven. So he pits Epicurus and Epicurean philosophy against religion, which he sees as a destructive force to prove to argue that religion has such a destructive force, he refers to some very famous episodes in Greek mythology. For example, Agamemnon, who led the Greeks in the Trojan War, sacrificed his own daughter, if again, in order to provide so that so that the gods would provide favorable wins so that they could all sail off to Troy. And Lucretius comments how terrible and horrible this is that for the sake of war, he would murder his own daughter. Such evil deeds could religion prompt. And he points out that religion is responsible for all kinds of superstitious beliefs, the worst, according to him being the fear of death, which priests and religious advocates worsen with their ideas about everlasting punishments in the afterlife in Hades or hell or whatever. Now, the alternative to religion is going to be a naturalistic account. So Lucretius will obviate religious beliefs by providing materialist, naturalist, scientific accounts of all of the things that cause superstitious fear, including death. So he says, we must both give good account of the things on high in what way the courses of sun and moon come to be and by what force all things are governed on earth. And also, before all else, we must see by keen reasoning whence comes the soul and the nature of the mind and what thing it is that meets us and affrights our mind and waking life when we're touched with disease, etc. And Lucretius mentioned the difficulty of doing this in Latin, as opposed to the scientific and philosophical language of Greek, which even for English, the basis of our scientific vocabulary remains Greek. But he bids Memius to pay close attention to his words so that he may quote, spread before your mind a bright light whereby you may see the heart of hidden things. And this then introduces the overall slogan of the whole work. This terror then, this darkness of the mind must needs be scattered, not by the rays of sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature. So we have to dispel fear and darkness that's caused by ignorance, and filled with religious and mythological stories, and find the inner law and actual structure of nature in order to resolve this fear. And those lines were repeated in book one, book two, book three, and at the end in book six. Now, the materialist thesis that we can replace religious explanations of things with descriptions of how material bodies interact comes immediately after the invocation of Venus. So he says, I will reveal the first beginnings of things from which nature creates all things and increases and fosters them and into which nature to dissolves them again at their perishing. These and rendering our account, it is want to call matter, material or creative bodies of things, and to name them the seeds of things and again, to term them the first bodies since they from them first things have their being. So it is fundamentally a materialist account of nature, and this is essentially where we get the term materialism to describe such theses. But notice that there are other terms besides matter for these principles, and these suggest organic or even biological material like creative bodies and seeds. And so though we have materialism, we have a kind of biomorphic terminology or at least metaphors applied to this materialism. Now, a question about this poem in book one. So just after giving the poem in the section on first principles, Lucretius writes, nothing is ever be gotten out of nothing by divine will. Fear foresoots so constraints all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the use of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search both whence each thing can be created and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods. So given Lucretius's adherence to Epicurean naturalism and materialism, and his professed hatred of religion, and his denial that any natural thing can ever be produced by a divinity or by divine will, why does he begin the poem with an invocation to a goddess, a mythological goddess, Venus as the mother of creation and generation. And a related, but even more general question, why does he use poetry of all media to convey Epicurean physics? I mean, Epicurus himself said that the wise man will be able to study and know about poetry and criticize it, but won't write poems himself. Whereas Epicurus is whereas Lucretius has not only written an epic didactic poem, but he has brought in some traditional religious imagery to introduce it. And there's a question as to why that would be. I think the answer relates to the therapeutic purpose of the whole work. So in one of the exhortative sections, Lucretius says that even as healers, when they try to give loathsome wormwood to children, first touch the rim all around the cup with the sweet golden moisture of honey, so that the unwitting age of children may be beguiled as far as the lips and meanwhile may drink the bitter draft of wormwood, and though charmed may not be harmed, but rather by such means may be restored and come to health. So now, since this philosophy full often seems too bitter to those who have not tasted it and the multitude shrinks back away from it, I have desired to set forth to you my reasoning in the sweet tongue song of the muses, and as though to touch it with the pleasant honey of poetry. So Lucretius draws an analogy between philosophy and medicine. Medicine treats the illnesses and diseases of the body, and it uses drugs to do this, and when children or adults with that matter are wary of the bitter medicine, the doctor can coat the rim of the cup containing the medicine with something sweet, and this will trick the patient into taking the medicine. But it won't harm them, instead it will help them. Similarly, Lucretius sees what he's doing as using philosophy to treat illnesses or diseases of the mind or the psyche, and the treatment is kind of a bitter medicine, because we have to accept these materialist and naturalist theses and get rid of all these religious notions that we've grown up with, and so to make that more palatable to us, he has to coat the rim of the medicine with the pleasant honey of poetry. So having introduced the poem itself and the poem to the first book, the rest of the first book is occupied with laying out the basic propositions of atomism, and on this slide I've grouped them and color coded them. The first two are what we call the law of conservation of matter, what we now call the law of conservation matter, and this is a common place in Greek physics that nothing comes to be from nothing and nothing can pass away into nothing. After introducing those, we get the specific hypotheses of atomism, that minute invisible bodies exist, and that they move around in void or empty space, and that there is fundamentally no third kind of thing besides atoms and void. After this, we get several propositions about the nature of the primary bodies, that they are solid, indestructible, immutable, and invisible, and then the propositions about the other end of the scale, the entire universe being infinite, and the supply of primary bodies or atoms being infinite. And the last proposition is that the compound natural bodies are formed by the motion, collision, and interlacing of the primary bodies in the infinite void, and not by external forces, and specifically not by any supernatural intelligence. So we begin to get the anti-religious conclusions of the poem. But let's go through each of these propositions in detail and see the kinds of arguments that Lucretius provides for them. But first of all, consider the general logical form of the arguments in support of the basic propositions, because they're all pretty similar. The form is to lay out the proposition, call it P, and then argue that if not P, then Q, some other thing would result. But since Q is observed not to result and is observed by the sense is to be false, then not P must be rejected, and so we must embrace the original proposition. That is, the consequences of the contrary of the proposition are unacceptable, and therefore we have to accept the original proposition. For example, we argue that void exists, because if it didn't exist, then nothing would be able to move, but many things are seen to move, like clouds, cats, cars, and so forth. Therefore there must be void. Or again, nothing could come to be from nothing, because if something could come to be from nothing, then we would see plants grow without seeds, but plants are never seen to grow without seeds, so nothing can come to be from nothing. And further, nothing can pass away into nothing. If anything could pass away into nothing, then trees would be seen to disappear all of a sudden, but trees are observed to slowly wither and die and decay in stages over long periods of time. Therefore, nothing could pass away into nothing. So let's look in detail at the argument that nothing can come to be from nothing. The argument is that if something could be come to be from nothing, then animals would be seen coming to be outside of their specific ecological niches, but animals are not seen coming to be outside of their specific ecological niches. For example, humans do not come to be in the sea, fish don't come to be on land, birds don't come to be out of thin air, cows don't come to be in the desert, and so on. So since those unacceptable consequences of the contrary of the proposition, we must accept the proposition itself since they are unacceptable. And many, many examples can be given in support of the unacceptable consequences that would obtain that aren't seen. And so Lucretius frequently provides many examples and very poetically. Now, instead of going through the complete version of each argument, I'll just give you the general run of the kinds of considerations made. So things are also not seen to be coming to be outside of fixed seasons of birth. And since they aren't, but would, if it were possible that something could come to be from nothing, then we should conclude that nothing could come to be from nothing. And again, things aren't seen growing outside fixed periods or without fixed nutrients or beyond fixed limits or growing in uncultivated soil and so forth. So all of these provide empirical evidence that the proposition nothing could come to be out of nothing must be true. And its counterpart, nothing could pass away into nothing has similar arguments. If something could pass away into nothing, then things would be seen to be destroyed all at once. But things aren't seen to be destroyed all at once. And things are not seen to disappear forever, but they're gradually replenished. And things are not all seen to be destroyed by the same force. And things are not seen to be continually decreasing. The loss of some things is accompanied by the increase of others. Thus, since those unacceptable and unwitnessed consequences of the contrary of the proposition occur, we must accept the proposition itself. Nothing could pass away into nothing. Now moving on to the specific propositions of atomism. And first, that minute invisible bodies exist. If they didn't, then wind wouldn't be able to move larger bodies because we can't see whatever those bodies or particles are in wind that cause larger bodies to move. So therefore, minute invisible bodies must exist. And scents are smelled without particles of scents being seen and heat and cold are felt without the particles of heat and cold being felt and sounds are heard without the particles or bodies being seen. Fabrics left outside are moistened without particles being seen. Water and feet can wear down stone, bronze statues can wear thin, iron blades can become dull, and in general many things decay without us seeing the particles that must be constantly being rubbed away. And therefore we have to conclude that minute invisible bodies exist. Furthermore, we must accept that void or empty space exists. For if it didn't, then nothing would be able to move. But many things are seen to move. For example, clouds in the air, fish in water, birds in the air, humans and snakes on land. But if there wasn't empty space, they wouldn't be able to move within it. And some apparently solid objects are in fact pervious, that is, they can be pervaded by other solid objects. And so they must contain void. Also, some objects that are similar in size differ in weight, so some larger objects weigh less than some smaller objects. So those larger objects must have more void, thus void or empty space must exist. And there is no third thing besides atoms in void. These are the fundamental constituents of all reality. Now, here Lucretius argues that if there were a third nature, then things would have to be grasped by some third kind of faculty other than the senses in and the mind. The senses grasp that there are bodies, we can feel them, they're tangible, we can also see them, hear them, smell them, etc. And the mind grasps the fact that there must be void space, because we infer that from the fact that we see things moving. But if there were some other kind of thing, we would have to have some other kind of faculty besides the senses and mind in order to apprehend it, but there appears to be no other faculty. Now they hold that all other things besides atoms in void are either properties of atoms in void, as heat is a property of fire, cold is a property of ice, both fire and ice consist of atoms in void, heat and cold are not themselves atoms in void, but they are properties of bodies that are configured in a certain way, like fire and ice. If other things that exist that aren't atoms or void or properties of bodies consisting of atoms in void are accidents of bodies consisting of atoms in void. For example, historical events like the Trojan war, the Trojan war is not a property of any body and it's not atoms in void itself, so in what sense does it exist? It exists as an accident of the actual place Troy, somewhere in Asia Minor, where the Trojan war happened, those bodies and void making up that place. It's an accident of them. This historical event occurred there. That is, there were other configurations of atoms and void, people moving around people fighting walls, horses, wooden horses and so on. All of those are accidents of the bodies and void. Now, a couple of propositions about the primary bodies. First of all, they must be solid, for if they were not solid, they would be mixed with void and then one would see things somehow both full and empty, but fullness and emptiness are seen to be mutually exclusive. So there have to be purely solid bodies that contain no void. And again, if there weren't such bodies, they would not be able to contain void. And then no compound body would seem to contain void, but we do see many compound bodies that contain void. Also, if they weren't solid, then nothing would be seen that's hard, only soft things. But we do see many things that are hard, like bronze or iron. Hard things can come to be both out of hard and soft elements, or from hard things, both hard and soft things can be formed. We can form soft things if we interspersed the hard things with more void. But soft things could never be formed. Hard things could never be formed out of soft things. Therefore, primary bodies must be solid. Furthermore, the primary bodies must be indestructible and immutable. If they were destructible, then everything in the fullness of time would be seen to be destroyed utterly and nothing would ever be renewed. But we do see things being renewed, and we see that not everything is utterly destroyed. And if the primary bodies were themselves changeable and undergoing constant change, then the natural kinds that we see would not remain constant and fixed. But we do see constant and fixed natural kinds, so different plant and animal species, cows reproducing cows, trees reproducing trees, humans reproducing humans. So the primary bodies that underlie all of those natural kinds must themselves not be constantly changing. And the primary bodies must be indivisible. In fact, this is why we call them atoms. The word atom means not cuttable. The a means not, and thomos means cuttable or dividable. So an atomos is something that is uncuttable or not dividable, indivisible. If they were divisible, then they would have to consist of parts that are smaller than some minimum. But we see that there are smallest possible parts and things. And if they were divisible, then they would have to be divided into parts that have some magnitude. But if they could be infinitely divided into such parts, then the smallest thing would be seen to have the same magnitude as the largest thing when you added up all of those infinite parts of finite magnitude. But of course, that's not seen. We do see some things to be smaller or larger than others. So there must be primary bodies of some finite magnitude. And if they were divisible, then they would have to be divided into parts that have no differentiation among themselves. Eventually, you would get down to just self similar parts. But then they couldn't be recombined into compound bodies. And we wouldn't see any compound bodies. But of course, we do see compound bodies. Therefore, we must reject that unacceptable result of the contrary of the proposition that the primary bodies are indivisible. Now, at this point, Lucretius stops his explication of the proposition to offer extensive criticisms of three earlier theories, the theory of Heraclitus of Ephesus, according to which there is just a single element underlying all things fire, Empedocles of Acragus, who argued that there is actually four elements underlying all things, fire, air, water, and earth, and Anaxagoras of Cladzemenia, who argues that there are an infinite number of elements underlying all things and that all things are in all things. Now we might wonder why are these people attacked and only these people attacked? And a plausible answer has been given that they're sort of representatives of the possible conceptual space about elements. So Heraclitus, the representative of the idea that there's one element or material monism, Empedocles, that there's a finite but plural set of elements, and Anaxagoras, that there are an infinite plurality of elements. Another reason that these people may be attacked is that in various ways, these people seem to have been influential on later enemies of Epicurean philosophy like Stoicism. So Heraclitus was kind of the taken to be the mascot of later Stoicism, and Stoics adopted the four element theory of Empedocles. So possibly this is an attempt to undermine a contemporary philosophy. I think the actual reason why this interlude comes exactly here is because Lucretius has just been debating the infinite divisibility of the elements, and all three of these earlier theories he thinks or argues are committed to the idea that the elements may be infinitely divisible. So we refute each of those theories and then are left with the theory that they must be indivisible. The basic elemental bodies that underlie all other things must be indivisible. Now the last major argument of the whole work is that the universe is infinite in extent, and contains an infinite number of bodies, and several arguments or proofs are offered for this. First, if it were finite or limited, then it would be bound by something. It would have boundaries, but nothing can be bound unless there is something beyond it, which acts as that boundary. But if there's ever something beyond, then that thing is not finite. And to make this clear, Lucretius conveys a thought experiment. He says, I could move to the edge of your so-called finite universe, and then I will throw a dart. And either the dart will continue on past your supposed edge of the cosmos, in which case it really wasn't the edge and the universe continues on, or it will hit a wall. But if it hits a wall, that wall must be a solid object. There must be an other side of that wall. There must be some thickness to that wall. And so the universe continues beyond the boundary that the dart has hit. And then I can replay the thought experiment at any other place, any other space in this cosmos, and I can apply the argument infinitely. So the universe must be infinite. And he also argues that if it were finite, then it would have some kind of invisible boundary. But the boundaries that we see are all visible. We see air bounding mountains, mountains, air, land bounding sea, sea bounding land, but we don't see any kind of immaterial, invisible boundary of the whole cosmos. And if it were finite, then all matter, since it's heavy, would collect at the bottom most edge of this container or boundaries of the universe. But we see that earth, air, water, fire, etc., are in fact differentiated from one another, exist in different quantities in different regions, and we don't see any bottom of the universe. And we don't see matter all collected or piled together. Finally, if matter were finite, then in the fullness of time, if the matter were finite, but the cosmos itself was infinite in extent, then in the fullness of time the finite matter would become so dispersed in the infinite void that no compound bodies would become visible. But since we do see compound bodies, we must accept that there is an infinite amount of material moving around in this infinite space. Now, that brings us to the issue of how compound bodies within the universe are formed. How do we get to the visible objects that we see? That is, how do the atoms and void recombine to form the objects that are visible to us? Well, first of all, Lucretius says it's not because the atoms and void are themselves intelligent or capable of organizing themselves. They're merely material principles. They don't have parts, so they can't think and they can't intelligently organize themselves into sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, humans, and so on. Furthermore, of course, Lucretius rejects the idea that the universe was designed or created by some supernatural intelligence. He says it's much too flawed for that, and we can give many examples of how it's flawed. Furthermore, since we're talking about the whole universe, it's not, can't be held together by some external set of forces. There's nothing outside of it. And inside of it, there's just the atoms and void themselves. So the compound bodies and regions of the world must be formed by continual movements and collisions of the bodies in space, as he says. But because many of them shifting in many ways throughout the world are harried in buffeted blows from limitless time, by trying movements and unions of every kind at last they fall into such dispositions as those whereby our world of things is created and holds together. So all of the objects we see are just recombinations of atoms and void, which because they've had an infinite amount of time have moved into every conceivable kind of combination. Now we'll say much more about this in book two, which is entirely devoted to how the atoms recombine. But just to conclude and recap what we've learned from book one, we've learned no less than 12 of the basic propositions of atomism, the law of conservation of matter, the existence of both atoms and void, the solid and indivisible properties of the primary bodies, and the overall infinitude of the universe, combined with a basic notion of how compound bodies are formed, not by intelligent or external forces, but by nature.